


So Goodbye Until Tomorrow

by TheAutotheist



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky is saved early, Does angst no longer mean this fic isn't happy?, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Sad Ending, Well now you know this fic isn't happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-11
Packaged: 2018-02-03 23:47:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1759961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutotheist/pseuds/TheAutotheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The biggest surprise for the still fledgeling SHIELD was not that Hydra hadn’t died with Schmidt, and that there were still Hydra bases running and fully functional. No, it was discovering that Hydra’s secret weapon, the asset they referred to as “The Winter Soldier” was one Sergeant James Barnes, presumed dead in 1944.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The biggest surprise for the still fledgeling SHIELD was not that Hydra hadn’t died with Schmidt, and that there were still Hydra bases running and fully functional. No, it was discovering that Hydra’s secret weapon, the asset they referred to as “The Winter Soldier” was one Sergeant James Barnes, presumed dead in 1944. And if that wasn’t enough to bring down all the fury of the directors onto Hydra’s multiple heads, then finding out what exactly they had done to him surely did it.

The Winter Soldier wasn’t aware of anything for a long time. There was the sensation of suddenly being thrust back into a world of warmth (which he’d experienced twice so far) in which everything seemed too hot, but he still could never, never completely chase away the cold that had settled in his very bones. Someone would tinker with his arm, either repairing it, or upgrading it, or running diagnostics on it. These people were different than the people who had worked on his arm before. Every now and then he would see a flash of something and he would throw the person across the room, or wrap his metal hand around their throat. Always after that people would swarm him and hold him down, but unlike before, they spoke to him in soft, soothing voices that confused him. And they never put that thing on his head that made every brain cell feel like it was on fire. He’d come to expect that, and was even more confused by its absence.

After several days, or weeks, or some period of time, he became aware of the fact that he was not always the Winter Soldier. There was a person he had been before, a person who did not have a metal arm. But he couldn’t remember anything about that man. A team of psychologists would watch him closely and ask him questions, testing the limits of his fallible memory.

One day, a psychologist called him “James,” because they always called him James when they talked to him, and he automatically said “Bucky,” to correct her. At her shocked expression he added, “Never went by James.”

They got really excited after that, thinking he had remembered more about his past, but when they asked why he had said it, all he could answer with was, “James sounds wrong. But Bucky sounds right.” Maybe they were a bit disappointed by the response.

Apparently Bucky was the name of the man he used to be, but that was all he had of the dead man. A name.

It was after that talk that the Howling Commandoes started coming by to talk. Perhaps they thought seeing people who knew him would help jog his memory. And they always called him “Bucky” or “Barnes” or sometimes “Sarge” as if they were all good friends with him. They brought up old missions, and funny stories of down-time, and mentioned some things he used to do. But under it all was something unsaid. He couldn’t quite figure out what it is, but he knew they were all leaving something out. Every now and then one of them will look at him with this sad, far-away look, or if two stopped by at once, they exchanged glances at some point in the conversation. Something important was left out of the stories.

And then one time during a story, he cut off Morita, who was telling him, “...seemed pretty pleased he’d caught himself a Commando until you--”

“Until I put a bullet between his eyes from two hundred yards away.”

Morita just stared at him, because it’s the first time he’s shown any kind of recognition to any of the stories.

“I was always the best shot on the team. That’s why I was the sniper.” The tone of voice he used was matter-of-fact, because he knew it was true, even if he couldn’t remember the details. It felt true.

After that, memories started coming back like waves crashing on a beach. Some would rush up and leave a lasting impression on his brain, and others glanced by, brought on by the smallest things, and were gone before he had the chance to grasp them. And the more memories that came, the more he realized that yes, something was missing from everything people have been telling him. And it wasn’t just something, it was someone. Sometimes it was a skinny blond kid, too proud to stand down from a fight, and sometimes it was a guy so strong, he looked like he could stop a tank. The two hardly looked alike, but Bucky had the distinct impression they were the same missing person. This person made his chest feel warm and his head feel light, in a good way, every time he remembered something about the two of them. He couldn’t explain this feeling, other than it just was.

One night as he sat reading the reports of VE-Day, of the war won that he had died fighting, a word bubbled up to his lips without any forethought and he sighed, “Steve…”

That’s all it took.

The person-shaped hole in his mind quickly filled in like air invading a vacuum, loud and violent. And all he could think was _Steve, Steve, Steve_ as image after image scrolled through his brain. Memories and memories and memories of the skinny guy from Brooklyn who would probably have died if he was ever sent overseas but still tried to enlist five separate times until he finally got the body he deserved, and put it to good use making a major dent in the Nazi war effort. He remembered staring up into that face and those blue, blue, sky blue eyes that were so damn happy to see him again, and how he had sworn it was a hallucination. He remembered watching Steve in everything, the new ways he moved, how he could breathe without gasping, how he was _taller_ than Bucky, how people reacted to him, how they followed his orders, how they called him “Captain” without any irony. He watched Steve from the side and he watched his back. He put a bullet in any fucking Hydra agent that got close to him. When Bucky got drunk, he watched the way Steve smiled and the way he laughed, because Steve never got drunk with the rest of the guys. He watched the way a lock of Steve’s pale hair would fall across his forehead and how he would absentmindedly push it back. He remembered wanting to touch his face and his hair and wondering how it would feel. He remembered getting too drunk once and letting Steve support his weight as he carried him back to base, even though Bucky probably could have stood on his own. He remembered looking up into that face again, and coming so close to kissing him, but stopping short because he was afraid.

He remembered falling. He had always remembered falling. But now, he remembered reaching out for the one person his life revolved around, a name stolen straight out of his lungs as he plummeted.

Bucky jerked forwarded, cutting off the wonderful, awful, joyful, horrible onslaught of memories of SteveSteveSteveSteveSteveSteve.

He sighed shakily and ran his fingers through his hair. It was only when he felt the cool metal of his left hand on his scalp that he was grounded once more in the present, far from the war and Steve and everything they had shared and the things they had never shared.

Once he was able to calm down, he thought simply and logically, _Where’s Steve?_ Steve would never have let him to go through all that alone, he knew that. Steve would have been at his side the moment they found him, when he didn’t even know himself, let alone anything about his best friend. He would have been the first one to come in and tell him stories to try to jog his memory. He would have been there to say, “It’s okay Bucky. It will be okay,” even when it wouldn’t.

“Where’s Steve?”

He didn't go to the Commandoes to ask. He didn't talk to the psychologists. He didn't talk to Stark, even though he is the head of this new organization called SHIELD that has been helping him through rehabilitation.

Instead, he went to Agent Carter, because he knew she would not lie, no matter how hard the truth was.

He relapsed a little and forgot to walk like a normal person as he left his room and stalked the halls of the SHIELD headquarters until he found Agent Carter’s office. He made no sound as he entered the room silent as death. So she didn’t see him until he stood directly in front of her desk.

She jerked slightly when she saw him, but put on a polite smile and said, completely calm, “Hello Sergeant Barnes.”

He didn’t bother with polite niceties. “Where’s Steve?”

The look that came into her eyes, the pain there, that told him everything. It confirmed his fears and he almost didn’t even need her to explain, but she did anyway. “Steve is dead. He died during the war, while stopping Schmidt.”

For a moment, Bucky thought he would explode. He thought this was too much and he would turn violent and try to hurt as many things as possible. He thought he wanted to tear this room apart even though he knew it won’t help. He thought he wanted to hurt something to cover up the things he was feeling. But instead, he just stood there, arms hanging limply at his sides. “How?”

Peggy sighed and clasped her hands together on her desk. She looked down for a moment because this was hard for her too. He wasn’t the only one who was hurting here. It had been years for her, but she still mourned. “Schmidt had a plane, loaded with bombs to take out major cities in Europe and America. Steve managed to get on board before it took off and kill Schmidt, but the plane was on autopilot. Rather than risk it, Steve forced the plane down into the ocean, before it could reach the United States.” She looked back up at him. “He saved millions of people. Not just soldiers, civilians too.”

Bucky let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. “That’s what Steve did. Even before he became Captain America.”

“I was the last person who spoke to him before… before the plane crashed,” she said. She continued to look up into his face. “After you had… After you fell, I told Steve that if he trusted you and believed in you then he had to give you the dignity of your choice to follow him, despite the dangers.” Bucky’s left hand clenched into a fist at his side, seemingly of its own will, but Peggy paid it no mind. “So when he decided he had to crash the plane to save everyone, he told me over the radio that it was his choice. Rather than try to save himself and risk all those peoples’ lives, he chose to sacrifice his own to save theirs. So we have to give him the dignity of his choice.”

Bucky was the one who looked away. He forgot Steve must have thought he was dead, and that it must have torn him apart. He had seen Steve’s face as he fell, the anguish there, the pure desolation fading into the distance because Steve hadn’t saved him.

“I should have been there,” he said. “I should have been on that plane with him.”

“You’re here now,” she said. “Steve would be happy that you lived. And he would want you to keep living.”

He wanted to smash his hand into her desk and scream at her, but he didn’t. He didn’t have any violent outbursts. Instead, he thought to himself, _I don’t want to live if Steve has to die._

Steve had been the only good thing in his life. When he had gone off to war, he consoled himself with the fact that Steve never would, that he would be relatively safe in Brooklyn as long as he didn’t get into too many fights and remembered to bundle up during the winter. Even when Bucky had wanted so badly for Steve to be at his side, he was happy that he wasn’t. And when Steve did show up, so big and strong, he was satisfied in the knowledge that at least he was tough enough to win his own fights now. And when Steve asked him to join his team, he knew his place was to watch Steve’s back, always. He would do whatever it took to protect Steve, no matter what. Even if that meant picking up the Captain America shield himself when Steve was knocked flat.

So what was the point? Steve had died anyway. What was the point?

“There’s a grave for him,” Peggy said. “In Arlington National Cemetery. He’s honored as a war hero. It’s an empty casket, because we never found his…” She trailed off and raised her hand to her mouth, unable to finish the sentence. She looked away from him. This was the point where she could no longer talk about it.

Bucky was surprised she had made it this far. Because he knew she had been in love with Steve. Clearly, she still was. It was obvious in the way she had looked at him, in a way Bucky was never allowed to. If he was her, he didn’t think he would be able to calmly explain how Steve had died, and what it was like to bury an empty casket.

“I want to see it,” he said.

She looked back at him and he could see that her eyes were shining, with as of yet unshed tears. “You’re supposed to stay on SHIELD property at all times.”

“I have to see it.”

She stood up and nodded. “I will take care of it.”

 

They weren’t willing to let Bucky go out on his own, not when he still had episodes where he would think he was the Winter Soldier. So a SHIELD vehicle drove him to the cemetery. Both the driver and a man who sat in the passenger seat were armed, Bucky observed idly, but he knew they would never be a challenge for him if he was really trying to get away. Peggy rode with him in the back seat of the car. While it was not unusual for her to carry a gun, today she didn’t. Bucky wasn’t sure what to make of that. Instead, she held a small bundle of lilies on her lap.

Bucky didn’t bring lilies. It wouldn’t have felt right for him. He opened and closed his left hand, testing the leather glove he wore to hide the metal in case they happened upon normal people.

When the agents parked the car, they tried to escort Bucky through the cemetery, but Peggy stopped them. “Stay here. We will will be fine.” She held her lilies gently and looked at Bucky. “It’s this way.” She turned and walked off without waiting to see if he would follow.

He stuck his hands deep in the pockets of his jacket and followed her past other graves, keeping his eyes on her back. It was a vulnerable position for her, and he couldn’t really understand why she was trusting him now when she had never trusted him even before he became an assassin.

She crested a hill and stopped in front of a grave. Actually, it was more like a monument, with a marble pedestal upon which stood a life-sized statue of Captain America. Peggy leaned over and laid the lilies on the ground at the foot of the pedestal. She glanced up at the statue briefly and then touched the marble base with three fingers.

She turned to him and then started to walk past him. “I will be waiting down the hill. Come and get me when you are finished.”

He half turned and watched her. “You’re not afraid I’m going to run off?”

“If you really wanted to,” she said over her shoulder, “you could have gotten away at any time since we left SHIELD, correct? So clearly you do not want to.” She continued down the hill and out of his sight.

Bucky turned back around to face the grave and the statue. It looked a lot like Captain America propaganda, with the full costume and the hand held up in a salute, but Bucky had a hard time seeing any of Steve in it. It was like they had forgotten the person Steve had been before he got the muscles, even though he had only been Captain America for a few short years. For most of his life, he was a kid who didn’t know how to run away from a fight. Who would get sick every winter, which caused Bucky to pray for him. “Please, God, not this time. Don’t you take Steve away from me,” he would whisper. And every time Steve had made it through. He was the kid who looked up for kids even smaller than him against bullies three times his size and who would always, always get back on his feet. He was the kid who, when America finally got in the war, wanted to run as fast as he could towards the thing that everyone else was afraid of.

That was who they should have honored, skinny Steve Rogers, not Captain America.

“You weren’t supposed to die, punk…” he found himself whispering, even though he hadn’t planned to say anything. He thought people who talked to graves were strange. But now that he had started, he couldn’t stop himself.

“That was the whole point of becoming a super soldier. You were gonna live and marry some beautiful dame like Carter and finally be happy. Why did you have to follow me down?” He clenched his fists in his coat pockets to keep himself from taking a chunk out of the marble.

“I think I was in love with you, you idiot…” He wasn’t sure if the admission was to Steve or to himself. He was surprised while he was saying it, but once it was out he knew it was right. “For the longest time. But I was too afraid. Before I left, I was too afraid to hurt you. I knew you were strong, but your body wasn’t. And I was afraid whatever I did would break something. Maybe I was afraid you’d hate me too.” He glanced up at the statue. “After you came over, I was afraid I had lost you. So I never said anything. But maybe I should’ve.”

He looked down and shook his head. “When I was falling, there was a moment that I thought it was better I hadn’t told you, cause then it wouldn’t hang over your head, keeping you from finding some girl to really love you. But now I wish I had. Just so I’d know.” He took a step forward and touched the marble, just as Peggy had done, and then he slammed his palm down on it, with fingers spread wide, though not hard enough to make a crack.

“Why didn’t you come back for me? Why did you save me in the first place?! You should have let me die on that table before I had any idea I was in love with you!”

The glare he was aiming at the stone softened and his fingers on the marble relaxed. “No, I’m glad you saved me, that I got the chance to watch your back. I’m glad I was the one who got blasted off that train and that it wasn’t you. But you were supposed to live. I was always expendable, but you were Captain fucking America. You fought your hardest against everything. You never let anything take you down, not a bully, not the flu. You always came through. Every time I thought for sure you were going to leave me, you would pull through. You always lived, Steve. So why aren’t you alive now?”

Bucky dropped down to his knees and rested his forehead against the marble. “Please God, don’t take him away from me… He’s all I got… Please don’t be dead…”

He stayed like that for a long time, just whispering to the stone over and over again, making a prayer that was impossible to fulfill. Not this time. You only got so many miracles.

When he finally leaned back, the air felt cold on his cheeks. He peeled the leather glove off his right hand and placed his fingertips against his face to discover it was wet with tears. He hadn’t realized he had started crying. He didn’t know he was still capable of crying.

Steve was really gone. “You were the good one… You were supposed to live…” he said again and rose slowly to his feet. He wiped his face on his jacket sleeve, trying to erase the evidence of emotions that were too strong for him to deal with.

That was when he caught sight of the grave beside Captain America’s. It was Bucky’s grave. Unlike the monument to Captain America, this was a simple tombstone with an engraving praising his merits in the war. It was surreal to stand in front of his own grave, even though he knew to the outside world he was still technically dead. SHIELD wasn’t ready to tell anyone until they were sure he wouldn’t revert back to a cold assassin.

A small part of Bucky was content to never tell anyone he was alive. As far as he was concerned, the Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes commemorated here was dead. He wasn’t the same person that had fallen off that train years ago. So it was fitting there was a grave here, right where it belonged, right next to Steve’s.

Bucky looked back at the monument. Agent Carter had brought flowers, but flowers were so ephemeral. They would wither and die in a matter of days, which was probably some awful analogy for human life in general. But he needed to leave something, some sign that he’d been here.

His left hand closer around the old wooden pocket knife he kept on him at all times, because they had taken away all the Winter Soldier’s weapons. When Bucky had died, all his possessions had gone to Steve, since he didn’t have any other family. When Steve died, all his possessions went into storage, since he didn’t have any family either. When Bucky was found again, they gave him back his belongings. He was going to ask for Steve’s as well once they got back to SHIELD headquarters. He deserved to have them just as Steve had deserved to have his.

The day Bucky had fallen, the wooden pocket knife he had brought over with him was still in his tent, back at base camp, rather than in his pocket where he normally carried it. He had forgotten it that day. So it seemed like fate that it hadn’t been on him when he fell, so that he could have it here now. He pulled it out and flipped open the small blade, before he kneeled down next to a corner of the marble pedestal. Normally, this would never work, not with a pocket knife. It was lucky for him that he had a version of the super soldier serum running through his blood, and a metal arm with enough power to cut through stone.

He worked slowly and carefully, taking the time to get his message right. It was important he get this one thing right.

When he was done, he stood and looked down to admire his work while he flipped the pocket knife closed and slipped it back into his pocket. It was the only thing he could give Steve, so it would have to be enough. Without another word, he turned away from the grave and walked back down the hill to join Peggy and the other agents.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote a scene over in my Female!Steve/Bucky fic where Steph goes and visits Bucky's grave before the events of The Avengers and it's horribly sad. So I wanted to wake Bucky up early and have him do the same thing. Cause apparently tragic is something I run on.


	2. Chapter 2

When Steve woke up, he knew something was wrong. What he had expected was that he had been captured by Hydra and was being held in a secret base somewhere, or something equally awful along those lines. Because if it was his people who had found the plane and pulled him out of the wreckage, they wouldn’t try to pass off a fake New York recovery room. There were so many details that were wrong, that whoever designed this place obviously had never even visited his New York.

What Steve did not expect, actually the last thing that Steve expected, was that he had been frozen for _decades_ and had woken in some shocking future New York full of too many neon lights, too many cars, and too many people. And he grew up in Brooklyn. Mobs of people shouldn’t have surprised him, but now New York held even more people than he would have ever thought possible.

It wasn’t just New York that had changed. Everything was different. The ways people communicated, and the ways they seemed so focused on doing anything but communicating, the ways people traveled, the entertainment, the news, _books_ , technology, everything was different.

SHIELD had offered him anything he needed to adjust to the twenty-first century. They had already provided him with an apartment in Manhattan. He liked to wander up and down the streets playing the game of what was different and was the same. So when he finally did go to SHIELD, the first thing he asked for was files of all the people he had worked with during the war. He knew many would be dead, but he just had to know anyway.

A helpful archivist actually got him physical files because he didn’t want to try to figure out any fancy equipment just to be able to read some reports. The man piled folder after folder on the desk, each with a name and picture on the front.

_Peggy Carter_

_Chester Phillips_

_Howard Stark_

_Timothy Drugan_

_James Montgomery Falsworth_

_Jacques Dernier_

_Gabe Jones_

_Jim Morita_

_James Barnes_

Steve looked at the last file in surprise. He cleared his throat and picked it up before handing it back to the archivist. “I don’t need this last one… I already know… I was there when he died….”

“Trust me, you’re going to want to read that,” a voice from behind him said.

Steve turned around to see Nick Fury walking towards him from the direction of one of the elevators.

“Heard you were down here,” he said as he stepped up beside Steve and plucked Bucky’s file out of the archivist’s hands and put it back into Steve’s.

Steve frowned and looked down at the file. “I know it’s been almost seventy years for all of you, but it wasn’t that long ago for me. I remember all the reports and this isn’t going to tell me anything new about how he died.”

“Barnes didn’t die in 1944.”

Steve’s head snapped up so fast he thought he heard the joints in his neck crack. “No, he fell. I was there. It was at least two hundred feet down a rocky ravine. I _saw_ him fall.”

Fury’s expression didn’t give anything away. Though it probably helped that he wore an eyepatch over one eye and could cover part of his face. “Read the file. If you still have questions after that, I’ll answer them.” He turned and headed back to the elevators. It seemed his only purpose in coming down here was to make sure Steve took Bucky’s file.

Steve looked back at the archivist, who also gave him a blank expression. He wondered if that was a requirement in order to work for SHIELD. He gathered the other files and dropped Buck’s on top, before tucking them under his arm and taking the stairs back to the ground floor.

Despite what Fury had said, he didn’t start with Bucky’s file. Instead he read the other Commandoes’. While he had certainly thought that some of them might be dead after seventy years, he hadn’t expected them to _all_ be gone. He read through file after file that all ended with a page with the big read letters of the word DECEASED stamped across them. He knew Colonel Phillips would be dead. But even Stark was gone. He picked up Peggy’s file with some trepidation, but was relieved to see she was still alive. She was in a nursing home, but she was still alive. He wondered if anyone had told her yet that he was back, that he had survived. And then he read that she had been diagnosed with dementia, and it was already past the early stages.

Steve clasped his hands together with his elbows on the desk and leaned his forehead into his hands. Even if someone told Peggy, it wouldn’t matter. Because she would forget just as soon as she was told. He couldn’t believe the bright woman he had known had aged to this, while he had stayed exactly the same. This was all so much more than he could have ever expected.

Finally, after he had put it off to last, after he had felt his heart sink and sink and become increasingly lost, he picked up Bucky’s file. The first thing that greeted him was Bucky’s smirking face from a photograph that had been taken on the day he had gone off to basic training. Even to Steve, it felt like ages ago that Bucky had packed a few of his belonging while Steve sat on his bed and watched, wanting so desperately to be able to follow his best friend.

_“Don’t be an idiot. It means you aren’t going to be sent off to die. Stay safe. I’ll visit when I can.”_

Steve took a deep breath and opened the file. The beginning was everything he had expected, except for the part that Bucky had been drafted. He had always told Steve he enlisted because Steve had been trying so hard to enlist himself. He didn’t know why Bucky had lied about that, but he always had a suspicion. Steve flipped passed basic training, passed his promotion to Sergeant, passed his capture and subsequent rescue by Captain America. He read briefly about Bucky’s time as a Howling Commando. He read the report that he, himself, had turned in about Bucky’s fall in the line of duty. All of that, up to where he had thought it ended, and he was barely a quarter of the way through the file.

Steve looked down at the last page of his report. If he were to admit it, he was afraid to see what came next, because whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good.

“Bucky…”

He flipped the page and was met with a photograph of a realization of his worst nightmares. Where the somewhat naive and somewhat childish grin of a younger Bucky had smirked at him from the front of the file, this Bucky stared at him with cold, soulless eyes, and the words WINTER SOLDIER written over his head. He had much longer hair in the photo than Steve had ever known Bucky to wear it, but still, he was recognizable. He looked grimy and dirty and was obviously in some kind of lab based on the medical equipment all around him. The most shocking thing, though, was the metal arm where his left arm had used to be. Even in the old black and white photo, Steve could see the ugly scars that traced the metal where it joined to Bucky’s shoulder.

When he finally got over his shock, he muttered, “What the _hell_ is this?”

He moved the photograph aside and read the information underneath. There were a couple scribbled notes in German, with neatly typed out translations in English. The translations bore the SHIELD insignia on top, but the German notes were written over a Hydra watermark.

Steve thought he was going to be sick. He shoved himself back from the desk with the scraping of wood on wood and leaned his elbows on his knees, with his head hanging low between his hands. His chest felt tight in a way that it hadn’t since he first had the procedure. And it was so much worse than any asthma attack had ever been. It felt like someone had reached into his chest and wrapped their fingers around his heart and squeezed until veins popped.

He took a few shakily breaths, and finally morbid curiosity won out and he had to know. He had to know what happened. What they did to Bucky. He had to know every awful detail because it was his fault. Because in the end, he hadn’t saved Bucky.

He read about how Bucky had survived the fall, due to the experiments with the super soldier serum that Zola had done on him when he was a POW. He read about the metal arm they had outfitted him with. He read about the brainwashing and the electroshock therapy. He read about the memory wipes. He read about the assassinations. He read the way Hydra referred to him, like he was a tool, a weapon, not a living human being.

When he thought he wouldn’t be able to take anymore, he reached the end of the Hydra notes and found instead more SHIELD reports, typed up in clean lines. Relief washed over him when he saw Peggy’s name at the top of the page. He read about the raid on the Hydra facility and how they had discovered Bucky there. He read about how they had slowly woken him from the cryogenic freezing where Hydra had left him between missions. He read about the rehabilitation process and the psychologists’ notes on Bucky’s recovery. He read Stark’s notes on the arm, which were followed by notes from Howard’s son, a Tony Stark, with more details about the arm. He was so relieved to see Bucky had been able to rejoin society, even though it had taken a while. Altogether, he had lost about ten years with his time as the Winter Soldier, as Hydra had called him, and his time in cryo, and his rehabilitation. It wasn’t until 1954 that SHIELD felt he was stable enough to be around normal people again.

Steve scrubbed a hand across his face. “Bucky… God, Bucky…”

He had lived. That whole time, he was alive. While Steve had been guiding a plane into the ice, Bucky was alive somewhere, in agony. If only he’d known. He would have gone back for him. It didn’t matter that it was deep in enemy territory, in the middle of frozen wilderness. If he had thought there was even a small chance Bucky had survived that fall, he would have gone through hell and high water to save him. He owed Bucky everything, for all the times he had looked out for Steve when they were growing up, when Steve had no one else to rely on. Bucky was always there for him. Bucky covered his back in every back-alley fight, and kept covering his back when he lead him back into war.

There was a time when Bucky had been the only good thing in his life. Bucky was the whole reason he had never given into the flu that he managed to get every single winter. Bucky was the reason he always got back on his feet and kept fighting, even when he was sorely outmatched. Bucky was the reason he had busted into the main Hydra base through the front door. Bucky was the reason it was okay to crash the plane.

But Bucky had been alive. When he had needed Steve most, Steve wasn’t there. Instead, he had selfishly sacrificed himself because he couldn’t live in a world that didn’t have Bucky Barnes in it.

He must have hated Steve for leaving him behind like that.

Steve leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair. He looked up at the ceiling and was almost surprised to see no cracks in the plaster there. Of course, this wasn’t the tiny little apartment he and Bucky had shared in Brooklyn in the 40s. This was 2011, and this was a beautiful new place in Manhattan that he never would have dreamed of being able to afford when he was a scrawny kid growing up with no more than a dollar to his name.

He had no idea how he would ever make any of this up to Bucky. How could he possibly apologize for everything that had happened to him, for everything he had lived through because of his loyalty to Steve? Bucky had a version of the super soldier serum in him, so the chance he was still alive was pretty high. That meant he just didn’t want to see Steve after they had pulled him out of the ice. He didn’t even know if Bucky was still the same person who had fallen off that train. Maybe he had forgotten all about Steve in the more than half a century that had passed.

It didn’t matter. He would find Bucky and he would apologize. It didn’t matter if Bucky never forgave him, because Steve had to see him again. Bucky was the most important person in Steve’s life, and he always had been.

Steve leaned forward again and flipped to the back of the file to find Bucky’s current address. He would go today, even if it was halfway across the world. Why hadn’t this been the first thing SHIELD had told Steve when he woke up? By the way, your best friend survived and is alive.

He pulled out the last page and stared at it. A strangled “No…” escaped his throat and he covered his face with his hand.

An older picture of Bucky, this one in color, was on the last page, partially obscured by those same red letters he had come to hate every time they had appeared on the other files. DECEASED.

“No,” he said again and squeezed his eyes tight, digging his fingers into his skin. It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t _fair_. He had the super soldier serum! He should still be alive. If the stuff was enough to make Steve survive being frozen for decades, it should be enough to keep Bucky alive into his eighties. How was Steve supposed to apologize if Bucky had died anyway?

He sat like that for a long while, refusing to look. Eventually he dropped his hand to the table and looked back down at the paper. He had never felt so defeated in his life. Even when he was beaten to a pulp and could barely stand, he never let anyone make him feel defeated. But this. This took all the wind out of his sails.

He slowly picked up the last few pieces of paper and read through them. The first thing his eye was drawn to was the date at the end. November 2, 2010. Steve glanced at the newspaper he had managed to find on the street earlier, just to double-check today’s date. November had been less than a year ago. It was less than a year. After decades, he had missed Bucky by less than a year.

The word “cancer” screamed at him off another page, which seemed just as wrong as the fact that Bucky was dead again.

Steve read doctors’ notes about how Bucky’s brain had deteriorated. It was all the things Hydra did to him when they found him after the fall. All the damage to his brain on top of the physical trauma of losing a limb. The metal arm that connected right into his nerves didn’t help, no matter the upgrades the younger Stark had tried to do. The doctors thought he should have died when he was in his forties, but the super soldier serum had kept him going into his seventies. They hadn’t even known anything was wrong until he had convulsed into a screaming seizure.

Once they started watching him more closely again, once they had him admitted to a special SHIELD hospital, they saw how far gone he was. He would dissolve into screaming bouts of pain, just pain. It wasn’t the slow, sad memory loss that seemed to be eating away at Peggy’s mind. This was screaming agony, that reduced Bucky to a horrible mess. Painkillers didn’t even work. His brain cells were destroying themselves.

If Steve had woken up a year earlier, he could have been there for Bucky at the end, at the very least. While he read the medical reports, he pictured wrapping his arms around Bucky and just holding him through the pain exactly as Bucky had held him during long winter nights when he could never ever get warm. Bucky was his lifeline and he didn’t deserve this. Steve had felt lost when he had woken up in this century, but never had he so desperately wanted to turn back the clock as in that moment when he read those papers.

“ _Physically, Barnes was in great shape for a man of his age when he was admitted. This was probably the reason he could function for as long as he did through what must have been excruciating headaches and migraines. But when the mind deteriorates, the body has no choice but to follow. He still chose to cling to life, until the very end. It was almost like he was waiting for something before he passed._ ”

Steve threw the file across the room, scattering papers everywhere.

 

It took Steve a long time to finally visit Bucky’s grave. He visited Peggy first, his one living connection to the past, and was so happy to see the way her eyes lit up when she saw him. Because she remembered him.

“Steve,” she said through tears, her voice weak. “You came back. It’s been so long…” He took her frail hand and held it gently.

“Yeah, I’m back…” His voice sounded too thick to his ears.

“Bucky will be so happy to see you. He’s been waiting so long,” she said. She didn’t know, or she had forgotten, that he was dead. Steve tried not to let the heartbreak show on his face as he turned away.

When he turned back, Peggy said again, “Steve. How is this possible? You came back…” And it was heartbreaking all over again.

It wasn’t until he had to go to the main SHIELD headquarters in Washington, DC that he finally went to Bucky’s grave. He used his visit to the Triskelion as an excuse. This close, he couldn’t keep running from it. So he went to the cemetery after SHIELD was done with him.

The first thing he saw was the monument to Captain America. Most people thought he was still dead. How did you explain a guy surviving being frozen for almost seventy years? It wasn’t like Steve really wanted to be Captain America again, anyway. So it was best to let that part of him stay dead. Next to the monument was Bucky’s grave.

Apparently they had first put one there when they thought he had died in the war. After it was revealed he had lived, they took it out, but kept the spot. After Bucky died the previous year, there was an actual funeral, with a real body buried in the ground this time around. Steve looked down at the tombstone that marked the grave.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” he asked quietly. “One more year, Buck. One year and we could have at least seen each other again…” He shook his head. “No, that’s not what I wanted to say.” He looked back at the tombstone. “I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry, Bucky. I’m sorry you had to go through all that alone. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

It was summer and the weather was beautiful everywhere but here, in this spot. Standing in front of both his dead friend’s grave and the empty grave with his own name on it, he still felt like he was encased in ice.

“Both of us spent time thinking the other was dead. It’s not fair. All that time…” Steve titled his head back and looked up at the sky. “All that wasted time…” He looked back at the grave. “I would have gone back for you. I thought I should say it… I don’t know if you’re up there listening, or if there is an afterlife or anything like that, but I thought you should know. If only I’d known… I would have jumped after you if I thought I could save you.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “But I could never rescue you.” He may have saved Bucky and the 107th from that Hydra factory, but they got him in the end. They still used him in their twisted experiments. “All I could do was love you…” He looked down, ashamed that he was making this confession to a grave, rather than seventy years ago to Bucky’s face. “God, I loved you so…”

Steve smiled weakly and looked at the grave again. “I would have done anything for you, Buck. Though I suppose it doesn’t mean anything now, after the fact.” He stepped forward and gently placed his hand on top of the grave marker. “I’m sorry… for everything. For all that lost time.”

He turned to leave, but something on the bottom corner of his own monument caught his eye, so he crouched down to see what it was. The corners of his lips turned up into a smile, just a bit. The marble here looked like it had been buffed down repeatedly, so it was shallower than the rest of the stone, but right in the center of the indent was carved a phrase. Steve could imagine the cemetery caretakers had tried to get rid of the vandalism, but the tagger had come back and carved it in again, repeatedly, until they finally gave up.

_til the end of the line_

Steve leaned forward and traced his fingers along the grooves of the letters. He pictured Bucky coming here, over and over, and carving them here anew, after every time people tried to remove them. He pictured Bucky sitting here and deliberately, patiently taking the time to make each stroke, each mark.

“I’m with you ‘til the end of the line…”

Steve dropped his head into his hand. That was when he started crying. That was when he finally cried. Because Bucky hadn’t hated him. Bucky hadn’t forgotten about him. Bucky cared enough to make sure this stayed here, this monument to their friendship.

“I miss you so much… Please don’t be gone… Don’t leave me…”

He sat like that for a while, crouched at the corner of a monument to a fallen war hero, as silent tears rolled down his cheeks. He thought about lost opportunities and missed chances. He thought about the way Bucky used to smile as him, completely carefree, even though they really weren’t, could never afford to be. He thought about watching Bucky dance with dame after dame, and how he would always come back to Steve’s side. He thought about how Bucky always got into the thick of every fight right alongside Steve, up to and including the war. He thought about the look on Bucky’s face as he stretched his hand out, as they both stretched their hands out. Just a little further, and they could—

He thought about Bucky falling. He remembered every detail as if it had happened moments ago.

Finally, Steve looked up and wiped the tears off his face with the heel of his hand. He quickly pulled a penknife out of his pocket and moved back over to Bucky’s grave. He could understand why Bucky had wanted this. So it was only fitting their graves match. He took his time and carefully etched out the letters exactly as Bucky had done on Steve’s grave, until there were a pair of graves, with a pair of phrases.

_til the end of the line_

Steve stood up and looked down at his carving, before looking back at the one Bucky had left on his monument. He smiled lightly, and said, before turning and heading off, “Bucky… Goodbye…”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because they're not allowed to be happy.
> 
> By the way, story title comes from the last song of the musical The Last 5 Years, which I keep throwing references to in every Steve/Bucky thing I write. This story is littered with quotes directly from that song.
> 
> Sorry this is so depressing.


End file.
